Did you know there are
over 29 different Hells that are commonly believed by many? While some have
some features that are similar they are all difference and have sharp
disagreements. Those that believe one version of Hell are in conflict with
those that believe any of the others.

THREE
CATHOLIC VERSIONS OF HELL

1. The Dark Age
Medieval Catholic version of Hell

2. The New
Catholic version of Hell

3. The Nether World

SOME OF THE MORE PROMINENT OF THE MANY
DIVISIONS OF THE PROTESTANT VERSIONS OF HELL

1.
The Calvin Version of Hell

2.
The Jonathan Edwards versions

3. The Graphic view of Hell

4. Two Hells, the
literal fire Hell

5. Satan doing the tormenting

6. God doing the tormenting

7. The
Metaphorical view of both Heaven and Hell

8.
Mental anguish only Hell – Billy Graham

9. The
eternal sinning version of Hell

10. C.
S Lewis - the almost pleasant Hell

11.
Protestant Traditionalist

12.
Many Protestant Premillennial versions of Hell

13. Dante’s cold Hell with nine levels of torment

14.
Realized Eschatology – A. D. 70 version

15.
The “Sudden Realization” version of Hell

16.
Protestant Rephaim versions

EIGHT OTHER VERSIONS OF HELL

1. Church of
Christ, Christian Church, Abraham’s bosom, the after Judgment Hell, A newer
version

2. Edward Fudge
version: The short Hell that will end

3.
Christadelphians version

4. Church of
God and others

5. Universalist
version of Hell

6. Seventh-Day
Advent version

7. Latter-day
Saints version (Mormons)

8. The Grave is
Hell version (Jehovah's Witnesses)

NO BIBLE HELL: Which Hell do you believe in? From where did Hell come?

How Hell was put into and is being kept in the Bible.

THREE CATHOLIC
VERSIONS OF HELL. (1) The Medieval Dark Age Catholic version of Hell, the
beginning of Hell: A soul being immortal came
from Greek philosophy, and was brought into the church by some of the church
fathers, by Augustine more then most others. The doctrine of Hell came soon
after the immortal soul doctrine along with Purgatory, and was fully developed
by the Dark Age Catholic Church before the Protestant Reformation. It seems to
be that in the past they believed that only a very few, the very bad will go to
Hell, which they believe is a real place, at their death with no judgment, but
most Catholics will go to Purgatory at death. A few of the very good will go to
Heaven at their death with no judgment (an instant rapture). At death most
Catholic will go immediately to Purgatory, which seems to be a limited version
of Hell, unto they have suffered enough to pay for their own sins, or unto
their love ones have paid all they can, then they go to Heaven. How long a
person will be in Purgatory is sometimes taught to be a short time, and
sometimes a very long time to those who have no one to win indulgences for
them, no one to pay. It has brought enormous wealth to the rich Catholic Church
from the poor who paid what little they had, and even done without food to help
a loved one out of Purgatory. The Catholic Purgatory gives no hope for
heathens, heretics, or those not baptized. The Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory
(1) makes some go to Heaven or Hell at death, (2) makes all other Catholics get
to Heaven as soon as they (not Christ) have suffered enough to pay for their
own sins, (3) leaves no dead Christians that will not already be in Heaven to
be resurrected at the second coming of Christ. They, not Christ, will have
suffered unto they have paid in full for their own sins, or others have paid
enough money to free them from Purgatory. An example of the Catholic teaching
on the selling of indulgences that was common before the time of Martin Luther
as given by John Tetzel, a Dominican monk who said as soon as the money is
given, “The soul escapes from purgatory, and flies liberated to heaven,” and
“The Lord no longer reigns…He has given all power to the pope.” As quoted by F.
LaGard Smith of Lipscomb University in “After Life” pages 223-224.

S.
M. BROWN: “Medieval Europe,” pages 348-259, 1932. “Hell is wide without
measure, and deep and bottomless; full of incomparable fire, for no earthly
fire may be compared therewith; full of stench intolerable for no living thing
on earth might endure it; full of unutterable sorrow for no mouth may, on
account of the wretchedness or the woe thereof, give an account not tell of it.
Yea, the darkness therein is so thick that one may grasp it, for the fire there
gives no light, but blinds the eyes of them that are there with a smothering
smoke, the worst of smokes. And nevertheless in that same black darkness they
see black things as devils, that ever maul them and afflict and harass them
with all kinds of tortures; and tailed drakes, horrible as devils, that devour
them whole and spew them out afterwards before and behind. At other times they
rent them in pieces and chew each gobbet of them, and they afterwards become
whole again, such as they previously were, to under go again such bale with
recovery, and full well they see themselves very horrible and dreadful; and to
increase their pains the loathsome hell-worms, toads, and frogs that eat out
their eyes and nostrils, and adders and water-frogs, not like those here, but
hundred times more horrible, sneak in and out of the mouth, ears, eyes, navel
ever yet thickest. There is shrieking in the flame and chattering of teeth in the
snowy waters. Suddenly they flit upon the heat into the cold, nor ever do they
know of there two which is worst for them, for each is intolerable…And this
same wan hope is their greatest torment, that none have any hope of any
recovery, but are sure of ever ill, to continue in woe, world without end, even
in eternity. Each chokes the other, and each in another’s torment, and each
hates another and him self as the black devil; and as they loved them the more
in this world, so the more shall they hate them there. And each curses another,
and gnaws off the other’s arms, ears, and nose also.” As quoted by Robert L.
Whitelaw in “The Last Resurrection,” pages 61-62.

This is the “Hell” that was taught by the Catholic Church in the Dark
Age, but there is nothing like it in the Bible. It came from pagan teaching.

(2) The new Catholic
version of Hell:

POPE JOHN PAUL II, "Hell is not a punishment imposed externally by
God, but the condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt
in this life...So eternal damnation is not God's work but is actually our own
doing...More than a physical place, Hell is the state of those who freely and
definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and
joy." In a statement made to his general audience, July 28, 1999. --“The soul in the OT means not a part of
man, but the whole man as a living being. Similarly in the NT, it signifies
human life: the life of an individual conscious object (Matt 2:20; 6:25; Luke
12:22-23; 14:26; John 10:11,15, 17; John 13:37; Acts 27:10, 22; Phil 2:30; 1
Thess 2:8). Recent exegetes…have maintained that the NT dose not teach the
immortality of the soul in the Hellenistic sense of survival of an immortal
principle after death” The New Catholic Encyclopedia, article “Soul, Human,
Immortality of, In The Bible.”

There are other high up Catholics who have made statements like this,
but I see no use in adding more when you have this from the Pope who is the top
person in the Catholic Church who’s word is law. Maybe this is why two of their
English Bible translations do not have the word "Hell" in them, and
who knows how many other Catholics translations in other languages do not;
however, because it has been the official doctrine for centuries, and the
decrees of councils and Popes, the Roman Catholic Church cannot officially not
teach Hell is a place of eternal torment without giving up completely their
claim of infallibility. Protestantism has not made this claim of infallibility
and many are giving Hell up.

(3) The Nether World: is this a new (third) Catholic version of
Hell?More and more in today's
writing, the Neither World is being used as if it is a Bible place that is
clearly taught in the Bible; but I have yet to read where anyone told where it
is in the Bible. Do both the Nether World and Abraham's bosom now exists at the
same time? If so, how are they different? The American Heritage Dictionary
says, “NETHER, Located beneath or below; lower or under: the nether regions of
the earth.” Where did thisworld that is located beneath or under this
world come from? It is not in the Bible; therefore, how could anyone know
about it? It came from the Catholic Church. Like Hell, they mistranslated it
from hades to get it into the Bible. Both
Hell and Nether World were mistranslated from the same word (hades) and both
from the same passage. See Acts 2:27

o“For you will not abandon my soul to the Nether World (hades)." New American
Bible.

The Nether World is a
new name being put into the Bible by the same people (the Catholic Church) who
put Hell into it, and it is being put into the Bible in the same way, by
mistranslating the same word they mistranslated to put in Hell.

1. First: hades was mistranslated Hell in Catholic translations.

2. Second: the same word in the same passage is now mistranslated
Nether World in some Catholic translations.

It worked for them the first time, so they
tried it a second time. When they need to prove Hell, they use one
mistranslation; and when they need to prove the Nether World, they use another
mistranslation of the same word in the same passage. The Nether World and
Universalist version of Hell, the "age lasting" Hell are very
singular in many ways. Both have those who are not worthy of being in Heaven
going through some kind of punishment, but will end up in Heaven. The main
different is that Catholics believe a few are too evil to ever be saved, and
will always be tormented by God, but in the "age lasting" Hell taught
by Universalists all will end up in Heaven.

SOME OF THE MANY
DIVISIONS OF THE EVER CHANGING PROTESTANT VERSIONS OF HELL: After much conflict among the reformers, most Protestants accepted
much of the early Catholic version of a soul going to Heaven or Hell one by one
at death, before and without the judgment, and without the Resurrection, but
the Catholic Purgatory (a temporary place of punishment to which Catholics
believe most will go to the moment of death, a place that is not Heaven or
Hell) was rejected. Unconditional immortality, which is the foundation on which
Hell stands, was accepted mostly due to Calvin and those that followed him
winning out over Martin Luther and his followers. If they had accepted Luther's
views on immortality, there would be no foundation for Hell. Many Protestants
believe souls that are in all who do not accept Christ will instantly be
transported to Hell at the death of the person a soul was in, transported to
Hell before the resurrection and before the Judgment Day; that God has
deliberately chooses to make these souls suffer and feel the pain without any
letup forever. The souls that were in the saved will go to their eternal home
in Heaven at death (an instant rapture). The Westminster Confession says,
"The souls of the righteous...are received unto the highest heavens...the
soul of the wicked are cast into Hell." Does God judge them at death, them
maybe thousands of years later, takes souls out of Heaven and Hell to judge
them a second time at the resurrection to see whether He made a mistake? Many
believe an unbaptized baby will not be saved. This version is still believed by
many today. An opposition to belief in Hell is rapidly growing in the
Protestant churches.From the
Protestant Reformation unto now there have been many changes and new Protestant
versions of Hell.

(1) THE CALVIN VERSION OF HELL: The given no chance Hell. An early
Protestant Version with a god that made most of mankind knowing he is going to
torment souls that is in them in Hell forever, and there is nothing a person
can do to keep a soul that we are told it in them from going to Hell, a god
that made the condition of salvation that he know most would not meet, but he
is going to torment a soul for eternity because the person did not meet it.
This god made most of mankind just so he could torment souls that were in them
forever as their creed says, "To His good pleasure;" if it were “to
His good pleasure” to torment for eternity there would be no way to escape the
conclusion that tormenting is just what such a god wants to do and takes
pleasure (enjoyment) in doing it; predestinated eternal torment could serve
only one purpose, an infinite desire for vengeance; a punishment that never
ends would guarantee that justice will never prevail; if justice did demands an
endless punishment them justice will remain eternally unsatisfied.

No amount of preaching or teaching can change the number that shall be
in this Hell not even by one person. The Westminster Confession says, "By
the decree of God, for the Manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are
predestinated unto Everlasting Life, and others foreordained unto everlasting
death;" this view believes God loves a few and saved them, but that He
hates most, that He could save all but does not want to; Calvinist believe
God’s anger will be visited upon rebels whose rebellion was preordained by God;
how could anyone say God is love when they believe He dose not want most of
mankind saved, that He made them just so He could torment them? Some
Protestants still believe this version of Hell that their god made most of
mankind just so he could torment souls for eternity. This version of Hell is
not near as poplar as it was a few years ago and is losing believers even in
the churches that teach it. Those who say they are orthodox Protestants but do
not believe the Calvin Version of Hell far out number those who do.

JOHN CALVIN said of
those in Hell that they are, “Forever harassed with a dreadful tempest; that
shall feel themselves torn asunder by an angry God, and transfixed and
penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the thunderbolts of God, and broken
by the weight of his hand, so that to sink into any gulf would be more
tolerable than to stand for a moment in these terrors.” There is nothing like
this in the Bible, he made it up, it is pure slander of God.

(2) THE JONATHAN EDWARDS VERSIONS OF HELL: Also an early Protestant Version and
there was a time when most Protestants believed this view of Hell, but now only
a few believe it. There are countless
variations of the Jonathan Edwards version of Hell, both major and minor
variations, about as many as there are preachers who preach it with each
preacher trying to out do the others in telling of the horrors of Hell; each
one trying to make the god of Hell more evil then the others have. Most
taught God had given Hell over to Satan, and Satan will roast most souls
forever, and torment them however he wishes to. Some have demons peeling off
the burning flash of those in Hell with God making sure they keep it up
forever. Some have God doing the tormenting of Satan, the demons, and souls
that were in the lost, with God forever pouring in fire and brimstone, and
thousands of other ways of tormenting In the past it was taught in books and
painting, (see below (6) “Satan will be doing the tormenting
version of Hell,”) now it has mostly been changed to it is God that is doing
the tormenting. Jonathan
Edwards said God"will crush their
blood out and make it fly, so that it will sprinkle his garment and stain all
his raiment."They never tell how they
know such details. Put all their horrors together and it would take many books
to tell then all, horrors that are pure fiction with nothing that is even
remotely kin in the Bible to the countless horrors they tell of, yet they falsely
preach these made up falsehoods as if they were the word of God; many of these
preachers get very specific with the details of the torment. Edwards’ god is
like a person that puts cats in a microwave oven for pleasure, and those in
Heaven take delight in seeing the cats (souls) squirming in agony. These
"Hellfire" preachers are not as poplar as they once were, and their
audience is much smaller. It is unimportant to them if they have no Bible for
their Hell or its horrors; the badly mistranslated King James Version is all
they need to make their Hell believable to many with whatever kind of torments
their imagination wanted to put in it. Some believers of the Calvin version
also believe this version and mix the two together. There is not much unity of belief
among the Protestants of today. In almost any church if the preacher started
preached sermons about Hell that was like the one's Edwards preached he would
be out of work very soon. The god Edward believed in would
have no problem with tormenting the lost; his god would take great pleasure in
tormenting, and, according to Edward, the saints in Heaven will watch with
pleasure and satisfaction. The worst torment any man can or ever has given to
another man is nothing to what Jonathan Edwards described God doing in his
sermon, “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God.”

The
Protestant doctrine of Hell as taught by Calvin and Edwards is much more
hideous and evil that anything that was taught in the Dark Age by the Catholic
Church.

IN
THE NOT TOO DISTANCE PAST BOTH THE CALVIN AND THE EDWARDS HELL WAS TAUGHT AND
BELIEVED BY MOST PROTESTANTS, BUT WHAT IS BELIEVED ABOUT HELL IS EVER CHANGING
AND NOW VERY FEW PROTESTANTS BELIEVED IN EITHER ONE, NOW BOTH HAVE BEEN GIVEN
UP BY MOST CHURCHES.

(3)
THE “REVISIONIST” VERSION OF HELL: Is a
reaction to the traditional versions of Hell, an attempt to take the monster
out of God that the Catholic, Calvin, Edwards, and other versions make Him to
be by taking the Hell out of Hell. This view takes the suffering out of Hell
and makes it into a place for those to live that have chosen to live separate
from God. Though there will be no joy in this “Hell” as there will be in Heaven
with God, there will be no pain or torment, just bare existence.

(4) THE GRAPHIC VERSION OF HELL: The sinners will be tormented in the parts of their bodies
that sinned.

WILLIAM CROCKETT,
"In short, whatever member of the body sinned, that member would be
punished more than any other in hell...In Christian literature we find
blasphemers hanging by their tongues. Adulterous women who plaited their hair
to entice men dangle over boiling mire by their...hair." "Four Views
on Hell" page 46. There is no way that this version of Hell
could be harmonized with Vine’s, “The immaterial, invisible part of man.”

(5) TWO HELLS, THE
LITERAL FIRE HELL:Augustine said, “That hell, which also is
called a lake of fire and brimstone, will be material fire and will torment the
bodies of the damned.” This literal version of Hell is where the earthly bodies
of the lost, not souls, are literally burning for all eternality but can never
burn up; while the body is tormented in Hell, the soul will also be being
tormented, body and soul are both tormented, but both are tormented separately;
the body or person in one Hell, and a soul that had been in the person in
another Hell.

SPURGEON, one of the best known of Baptist preachers, said, "When
thou driest, thy soul will be tormented alone; that will be a hell for it; but
at the day of judgment thy body will join thy soul and then thou wilt have twin hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and
thy body suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth,
thy body will lie, asbestos like, forever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for
the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the devil shall forever
play his diabolical tune of hell's unutterable lament." From his sermon
"The Resurrection of the Dead." Like most who believe God will
forever torment many billions, he must have some revelation that is not in the
Bible to tell him about their suffering. In his day most orthodox Protestants
believed the Devil would be doing the tormenting, but today most orthodox
Protestants think he was wrong, that God is the one who will be doing the
tormenting. The man made "Hell" is forever changing. What was orthodox
in his day is no longer orthodox. For many Baptists his truth is no longer
truth.

(6) SATAN WILL BE DOING THE TORMENTING VERSION OF HELL:Satan and his angels will be
doing the tormenting, but they could only be executing the will of God that the
lost be tormented for they could not torment souls that had been in the lost
without God letting them. This view was believed by most in the Dark Age, and
by most Jonathan Edwards preachers who often speak of “the devil Hell” as
though Hell was a place that belonged to Satan. Most Protestants have now
abandon the view of Satan and his demons doing the tormenting, but I remember
that this was believed by most when I was a child, and was what most
Protestants believed at that time. Many painting in museums and churches show
Satan and his demons roasting those in Hell, and tormenting them in every way
the painters could think up.

HENRY WARD BEECHES
Henry Ward Beeches speaking of Michael Angelo's painting, The Last Judgment
said, "Let anyone see the enormous gigantic coils of fiends and man; let
anyone look at the defiant Christ that stands like a superb athlete at the
front, hurling his enemies from him and calling his friends toward him as
Hercules might have done; let anyone look upon that hideous wriggling mass that
goes plunging down through the air-serpents and man and beasts of every
nauseous kind, mixed together; let him look at the lower parts of the picture,
where with the pitchforks men are by devils being cast into cauldrons and into
burning fires, where hateful fiends are gnawing the skulls of suffering
sinners, and where there is hellish cannibalism going on-let a man look at that
picture and scenes which it depicts, and he sees what were the ideas which man
once had of Hell and of divine justice. It was a night-mare as hideous as was
ever begotten by the hellish brood it-self; and it was an atrocious slander on
God...I do not wonder that men have reacted from these horrors."

There are hundreds or thousands of this kind of paintings in museums and
churches around the world especially in Italy that were made in the dark ages,
and they that show what was believed about who would torment the lost. These
painting show a god that is bringing millions into existence ever year and then
casting them to demons for the demons to torment.

Satan and his demons are never punished in this version of Hell Satan and evil spirits are forever
over "Hell," and will forever be able to torment most souls that had
been in mankind. Instead of being punished, they will have forever triumphed
over God, and will forever have a kingdom of their own where they will work
their evil on souls as they please to, and as it gives them pleasure. This
version of Hell makes there be something like two kingdoms or two universes
after the judgment with Satan over one with most souls that had been in the lost
before the death of the persons, but these souls are now in Satan’s kingdom,
and God over a much smaller number in His kingdom. Both God and Satan would
have eternal power in their kingdom, and the division between Heaven; this Hell
would mean God would not ever have a victory over evil.

(7) GOD WILL BE DOING THE TORMENTING VERSION
OF HELL: Satan and his angels will be
tormented by God just as all souls that had the lost of mankind. There has been
a major change by many Protestants from Satan doing the tormenting to God forever
being in Hell and doing the tormenting.

(8) THE METAPHORICAL VIEW OF BOTH HEAVEN AND
HELL: We are not told what Heaven and Hell
will literally be like. This view of Hell is that we are told in pictures that
tell us Heaven will be a place of beauty more than anything on this earth, and
that Hell will be worse than anything on this earth. Because we cannot
understand what Heaven will really be like, we are given the picture of a city
with gold streets and pearl gates to picture for us its great beauty and value,
but it will not literally be made of gold, pearls, or of anything that we have
on this earth. The metaphorical view of is Hell is pictured as a place of fire;
being burned in fire is one of the worst pains we know of, but those that believes this version do not believe it will be
literally fire, as we know it, or literal darkness as we know it. In this
view none of the literal torments of the Jonathan Edwards Version are possible,
for they are all things of this earth that will not be in Hell. This version of
"Hell" taught by William Crockett in “Four Views On Hell” seems to be
growing rapidly, for it is looked on as a way to make God less evil, but in
fact it does not for whatever would be symbolized by being tormented by eternal
fire would be just as bad as being eternally tormented by literal fire, and God
would still be the one doing the eternal torment.

(9) BILLY GRAHAM’S MENTAL ANGUISH VERSION OF HELL: This version of
Hell changes Hell from a place to a
state of mind. Billy Graham said, "Could
it be that the fire Jesus talked about is an eternal search for God that is
never quenched? That, indeed, would be hell. To be away from God forever,
separated from His Presence," The
Challenge: Sermons from Madison Square Garden, 1969, page. 75. He makes Hell be only a state of mind. In "The World To Come,"
page 300, Isaac Watts makes the worm be the conscience of a person eating on
himself for all eternally. A survey by US News, January 2000, page 47, says 53
percent of Americans believe Hell to be only mental anguish. This is an attempt
by some to lessen the negative effect of Hell making God cruel and sadistic,
but the attempt is a complete failure. Replacing physical torment with mental
anguish does nothing to change Hell by making the torment be less. Mental
anguish can be worse than physical pain, and it would still be unbearable
torment without end. Billy Graham, who is an orthodox Protestant, would in no
way been called orthodox by Calvin or Jonathan Edwards, nor would many others
that believe Hell is only mental anguish as he does. The old orthodox is some
times the very opposite of the new orthodox.In the mental anguish version of Hell for
sins after death, Hell is not a place but a state of mind, of anguish caused by
separation from God, the sinner punishes himself after death; it is not God
that punishes him, but where are all the
sinners that are punishing themselves? If they are not in Heaven or Hell, where
are they?Alexander Campbell:
"The sinner's suffering by mental agony, produced by sin, greater than
could be caused by material fire," "Five discourses on Hell"
1848. This version of Hell that is believed by Billy Graham, Alexander
Campbell, and over 53 percent of Americans is a totally difference Hell than the
orthodox Hell of Calvin; the real material fire preached by Edwards and Calvin
has been replaced with, for lack of a better name, a spiritual fire that
mentally torments, but this fire never burns up anything .

(10) THE ETERNAL
SINNING VERSION OF HELL: sin is self-perpetuating and the sinner cannot stop
sinning even when tormented in Hell for it; therefore God must keep tormenting
them without end. This version of Hell is just
another attempt to justifier God for tormenting for all eternity for the sins
commented in this lifetime. Some protestant believe that the sins in this
lifetime are not enough to be tormented for all eternity, but souls that were
in the lost person that sins in this lifetime, these souls will keep on sinning
after they are in Hell and will never stop sinning; therefore, the tormenting
of these souls by God will never stop.

If it were true that
the sinner could never stop sinning after death then would it not be true that
the sinner can never stop sinning in this lifetime; therefore, no one could
ever be saved?

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL:
"We do not maintain that men are punished eternally for sins committed in
this life only. The analysis of the sufferings of a future retribution, which
we have just given, is itself sufficient evidence of this fact; for the
indulgence of voluntary depravity is itself both sin and punishment. As a
consequence of past sins, the sinner has formed the habit of sinning. It is a
law of man's nature, that habit creates both a tendency to certain acts, and a
facility in their performance. As the result of the habit of sinning, formed in
this life, a tendency to repeat acts of sin is carried on by the sinner into a
future world; and every such act repeated in that world not only perpetuates,
but increases the tendency to further acts of the same kind: and thus, as by
every repeated act the tendency to sin is increased, and as every act also
brings with it its own punishment, so, by the laws of man's mental and moral
nature, the sinner's progress in both sin and suffering in a future world, is
like that of a falling body, which increases its velocity as the square of the
distance increase through which it falls. There is, therefore, just as little
probability that a sinner, left to himself in a future world, should repent and
turn to God, as that a falling body should arrest itself in its downward
course, and ascend to the elevation from which it fell...surely the assumption
that our doctrine supposes that God punishes sinners eternally for sins
committed in this brief and frail life is wholly gratuitous." "Five
discourses on Hell," page 65, April 9, 1848, Daniel Davies Publisher.

Is he saying the
millions that live and die without ever hearing about God are harden sinners
and that not a one would ever repent? Human nature is such that it can change;
even the very bad can and do change in this lifetime. Is he saying God will
change human nature in such a way that no one will be able to change, not one
of the many millions will be able to repent? Will God deliberately change all
so that they cannot stop sinning; therefore, He can torment them for all
eternally? This version of Hell makes even the worse sinners able to repent and
change in this lifetime, but after death all sinners will go on sinning with
not one of them will ever be able to stop. It makes there be no end to sin.

Not many members of
the Christian Church or the church of Christ any longer believe as Alexander
Campbell, but it is now being taught by many Protestants.

(11) C. S.
LEWIS’S THE ALMOST PLEASANT HELL:In Great Divorce C. S. Lewis pictures Hell as not
black, but only a little gray almost pleasant place where souls that are that
are in it can take bus trips into Heaven for the day and return to Hell. See
“The Destruction Of the Finally Impenitent” by Clark H. Pinnock at: http://www.abccoggc.org.jrad/volume2/issue1/jrad_v02.1_art2.htm - There is an almost
constant rationalizing of the doctrine of Hell to make the God of Hell a less
evil God, even making immaterial souls take bus trips.

(12) PROTESTANT
TRADITIONALIST VERSIONS OF HELL: Most who
say they are orthodox and traditionalist believes souls that had been in the
lost persons will be kept alive with some kind of punishment, but beyond this
there is little agreement among them. Some believe much as did Jonathan Edwards
and Calvin, that there will be torment for all souls that are in Hell beyond
anything that we can now know of. There are others Protestants who utterly
repudiate both Calvin’s and Edward's Hell; they believe that there will be some
kind of eternal punishment, but it may be nothing more then a little mental
anguish, or just being deprived of all good. Others are at all points between
the two, even when they are in the same denomination. In those who call
themselves "traditionalists," there are wide ranges of views; yet,
they all say they are orthodox and traditionalist! Orthodox is a big blanket,
and growing bigger all the time. Even so, few if any who are orthodox and
traditionalist believe the same, and there is a world of difference in what is
orthodox in the Protestants churches. Many who say they are orthodox do not
believe in once saved always saved, infant baptism, Augustine's view on
predestination, the millennium, and countless other differences in what is
traditional and orthodox. Although they cannot agree among themselves over what
is traditional, they attack all who do not believe in one of their many
versions of "Hell" for not being orthodox or traditional, nonetheless
accept many as being orthodox who believes in an entirely different
"Hell," and even accept Premillennial, which has many who do not
believe in any version of Hell, or believe that Hell will be on this earth, and
will last for only a short time.

(13) PROTESTANT PREMILLENNIAL VERSIONS OF
HELL: From all the information I can find
there are many more Protestants who believe in some form of Premillennial
teaching than not. Premillennial variations found in the Protestants churches
are pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, post-tribulation, partial-rapture, many
mini-raptures, already past rapture, the tribulation period, historic
Premillennial, Post Millennialists, Dispensationalist, and many more. Many of
the Premillennial versions of Hell are somewhat similar to either the
Seventh-Day Advent Version of Hell, or the Church of God Version of Hell. Many
of the Premillennial versions of Hell are far from being what is thought of as
being orthodox, but most all Premillennialists are thought of as being
Protestant, orthodox and traditional.

UNORTHODOX IN ORTHODOX
CHURCHES: It may come as a surprise to many that there may be more who say they are orthodox
Protestants who do not believe Hell to be eternal torment than there are
orthodox Protestants who do believe Hell to be an actual real place of eternal
torment. When US New says 53 percent of Americans believes Hell to be only
mental anguish, many of that 53 percent are orthodox Protestant, and this 53
percent is in addition to the many Protestant Premillennialists who do not
believe Hell to be a place of eternal torment. When some say that is only
Jehovah's Witnesses teaching, they seem to be blind to the fact that this is
the teaching of many of the orthodox Protestants, and the number of orthodox Protestants
that do not believe in the Jonathan Edwards or Calvin versions of Hell is now
greater then the number that do. Much of what is accepted as orthodox today
would have been called heresy 200 years ago by most all Protestant Churches. It
came as a surprise to me, as I am sure it will be to many, that many orthodox
Protestants believe none of the saved will go to Heaven, but will live on this
earth for eternity. Many Protestant Premillennialists believe this. It may also
come as a surprise to many that those who say they are orthodox Protestant, but
do not believe Christ to be God, but is a created being that did not exist
before His birth. Many believe Him to be a chosen one by God, and that He is
now in Heaven, but will come back to earth, set up the kingdom of God in
Jerusalem, and will rule the kingdom, which will always be on this earth. It
seems to be OK to not believe in Christ as being equal with God, but not OK not
to believe God to be crueler than any other being, and that He will torment all
souls that were in the lost forever.

(14) THE HELL WITH NINE LEVELS:It took nine
levels of torment with each one worse then the one above it to satisfy the
imaginative mind of Dante. The first level was for those who had committed no
sins.The lowest level of the
insufferable depths was dominated not by flames but by freezing winds and
eternal ice. Even the first of the levels, which he called circles, is a prison
for those who committed no sins on earth, but were unbaptized and without
knowledge of Christ. Each level or circle becomes increasingly worse,
consistent with the degree of the guilt of the sinner.

(15) REALIZED
ESCHATOLOGY, THE A. D. 70 VERSION OF HELL: It is
difficult to pen down just what they believe. This Protestant version of Hell
seem to be that death is the end of those who are not faithful, and for
unbelievers there will never be a resurrection. The second coming of Jesus was
in A. D. 70, the resurrection day was also in A. D. 70 when the Old Testament
Saints where resurrected, there is no Judgment Day to come, no day that the
earth will end. All the Old Testament faithful was resurrected in A. D. 70,
which they believe to have been the second coming of Christ, and after A. D. 70
the Judgment Day of each person is the day of their death, (1) the death of the
lost is their end, they will never to be resurrected, (2) at the moment of
their death all believers are resurrected to eternal life. This seems to be
their general teaching, but I am sure that are many variations within Realized
Eschatology.

(16) THE “SUDDEN
REALIZATION” VERSION OF HELL: A Protestant version that is somewhat like the Roman Catholic
Purgatory. When the lost stand before God at the judgment they will suddenly
realize how good God is and will repent. Some say it will take only a short
time, other say it will take a longer time unto they will be admitted into
Heaven, but they may not have all the privileges of Heaven that those that
obeyed Christ will have. This is just another attempt to make God less evil
then most orthodox Protestant versions of Hell makes Him; no passage says a
person can repent after death.

(17) REPHAIM VERSION OF HELL - ONE OF THE PROTESTANT VERSIONS OF
HELL: This
version of Hell is Protestant; as far as I have been able to find no one
teaches it but those who are called orthodox Protestants, but it cannot be
called traditional or orthodox. God, angels,
and man (after death) are disembodied energy being capable of thought and
speech without the need of a body.Rephaim is in the Hebrew
Old Testament eight times, and is translated “dead” seven times, and “deceased”
one time in the King James Version; it is defined in some Lexicons as
"departed spirits," "shades," "shadows,"
"ghosts," "name of the dead in sheol."

THREE OF THE
EIGHT PASSAGES ARE IN ISAIAH. This is a book of many symbols, much like
Revelation.

(1) Isaiah 14:9-11 "Sheol from beneath is moved for you to
meet you at your coming: it rises up the dead(Rephaim) for you, even all the chief
ones of the earth; it has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the
nations. All they shall answer and say unto you, Have you also become weak as
we: have you become like unto us? Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the
noise of your viols: the worm is spread under you, and worms cover you." This
is a description of the fall of Babylon, and it has nothing to do with an
immortal something that was in a person. In this metaphor the past dead
nations, nations that no longer existed were surprised to see a nation as
strong as Babylon joining them. If all souls that had been in the dead were
alive, why would the souls that were already in sheol be surprised to see
another soul join them after that soul had left the person it was in when souls
that were in all that die would join them? It would make no sense if they were
surprised to see more souls joining them. Even the trees join in with the dead
nations and talk (14:8). Only in a metaphor can past nations that are dead, that
no longer exist, and trees talk (Isaiah 14:8).

In
this passage Rephaim (one word) is translated:

o“The dead” (two words) in both the
King James and the New King James.

o“The spirits of the dead” (five words from one word)
in the New American Standard even though “ruach” (spirit) is not in the Hebrew
they added it. There is no way to get “spirit” from “rephaim,” but the
translators needed to put immortal spirits in the Bible and added it.

o“The spirits of the departed” (five words
from one word) in the New International Version. It also added spirits even
though spirits is not in the Hebrew.

o“The ancient dead” (three words from one
word) in the Revised English Bible even though there is not a word in the
Hebrew in this passage that is even remotely kin to “ancient.”

(2) Isaiah 26:14 "They (the nations) are dead(Rephaim), they shall not live; they
are deceased, they shall not rise; therefore have you visited and destroyed
them, and made all remembrance of them to perish." This is about
nations that did not remember God. It has nothing to do with an "immaterial, invisible part of
man" after death. It is hard to believe this passage is used to prove
that a person has an immortal immaterial, invisible soul, for if it were
speaking of this something in a person, then that something is dead, deceased,
shall not rise (no resurrection), and all remembrance of that something in a
person has been made to perish. If this were an immortal soul, it would be nothing
like the immoral soul of today's theology, it would teach there is no life or
resurrection after death for a immortal soul, but this passage is used anyway
to somehow prove that a soul is alive after death, alive in either Heaven or
Hell.

(3) Isaiah 26:19 "Your dead shall live; my dead bodies
shall arise. Awake and sing, you that dwell in the dust; for your dew is as the
dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead (Rephaim)."
Isaiah is speaking of the nation of Israel that was dead, they were slaves in
bondage to another nation because they had left God, now they had repented and
were being restored as a nation. He is not speaking of the resurrection of any
individuals Jews.

oIn Isaiah 26:14, which is speaking of nations, the nations are
dead and shall not rise (shall not
be restored).

oIn Isaiah 26:19, which is speaking of Isaiah, it shall live, shall arise (shall be restored).

oIf these were speaking of souls that had been in individuals, as Robert Morey in "Death and The Afterlife," on page 79
says he would have these souls both (1) “shall
not rise” and (2) “shall rise.”

Note: the King James
Version in both Isaiah 14:9; 26:14 and 26:19 changed the Hebrew proper name,
Rephaim, to “the dead,” the New
American standard changed it to “the
spirits of the dead” in 14:9, and “departed
spirits” in 26:14 and 26:19. Why did they change what God said; the Hebrew
does not say “the dead,” “spirits of the
dead” or “departed spirits”;
neither one is a proper noun, Rephaim is a proper noun, and there is no
authority for changing it. Isaiah 26:19 is speaking of the nation of Isaiah,
not of departed spirits. The New International Version in 14:9 says “spirits of the departed”
when neither “spirit” nor “departed” is in the Hebrew. Is not this just another
attempt of the translators to change God’s word to put their view into the
Bible, even if they had to change the proper noun God used into some thing
other than a proper noun?

THE OTHER FIVE PASSAGES ARE
IN THE POETICAL BOOKS.

1. Job 26:5-6 "They that are deceased(Rephaim)
tremble beneath the waters and the inhabitants thereof. Sheol is naked before
God, and Abaddon ("Destruction" New International Version) has no covering."

2. Psalm 88:10-12 "Will you show wonders to the dead(Rephaim)? Shall they that are deceased arise and praise you? Shall your loving
kindness be declared in the grave? Or your faithfulness in destruction?"

3. Proverbs 2:18-19 "For her ("adulteress"
New American Standard Version) house
sinks down to death, and her tracks lead to the dead; (Rephaim) none who
go to her return again, neither do they reach the paths of life."

4. Proverbs 9:18-19 "But he knows not that the dead(Rephaim) are there; that her (the foolish woman or adulteress) guests are in
the depths of Sheol."

5. Proverbs 21:16 "The man that wandered out of the way
of understanding shall rest in the assembly of the dead (Rephaim)."

All
five refer to the lost, and speak of their death, deceased, destruction, dead,
not ever attaining unto the paths of life again, resting with the dead. The
dead are simply spoken of as being dead; nothing is said about a soul being
alive after the death of the person. There
is nothing in any of the five passages above that say anything about a soul
being alive in Heaven, Hell, or Abraham's bosom at any time, not before or
after the judgment; they are an undeniable contradiction to the orthodox doctrine
of being alive and going to Heaven or Hell at death.

What
do many believe? These passages are used to prove all the dead; both the
good and the evil souls are now
"Rephaim." Many who believe
all souls that were in the dead go immediately to Heaven or Hell at death use
it although it would make a soul not be in Heaven or Hell where they believe
the immaterial, invisible something that is now in a person will be after the
person is dead.

(1). The Protestant
version is that the dead are now alive in
Heaven or Hell.

(2). The after
judgment version is that the dead are now alive
in hades with some on the good side of hades and some on the bad side, but both
use these passages, and have the dead being in four places simultaneously, 1)
Abraham’s bosom, 2) Heaven, 3) Hell, 4) Rephaim.

(3). The Rephaim
version is that souls of both the good and the
bad are together and exist only as shades, or shadows, they are not in Heaven
or Hell. Yet, those who believe the Protestant version, or the newer after
judgment version of Hell sometimes use "Rephaim"
to prove "Hell" even though it would put all souls that were dead
together, and not where they believe these souls to be, and definitely nothing like the immortal soul of today's theology.
The attack on Hell that is coming from many in most all churches is forcing
them to take views not many Christians believe. The Rephaim version seems to be
used only by those who are trying to prove a person has an immortal soul, but are
hard pushed to find any passage to prove it.

Which way do they go? "Rephaim"
is used by Protestants in a way that does not agree with what they believe and
teach; Protestants believe that the saved will be in their eternal home with
Christ in Heaven at death, but step away from this belief and say at death both
the saved and unsaved are together, and have only a weak shadowy existence, and
will have this shadowy existence unto the resurrection. Even if we did grant
that Rephaim is the "immaterial, invisible
part of man" after death, it would contradict their beliefs about the
"soul" being in Heaven or Hell. It makes all the dead be
"shades" "shadows." Anyway you look at it, the eight times
Rephaim is used they do more to refute the belief of going to Heaven at death
than they do to support it. Are they so desperately in need of proof that a
person has an immaterial, invisible something in them that can never die that
they reach for anything, even if it is far from what they believe and want to
find?

Robert Morey, an orthodox Protestant, has written one of the most
accepted and used books in defense of the doctrine of Hell that has come out in
recent years. In his book he makes an argument for Hell which I think shows
just how desperate he is for any kind of proof. In "Death And The
Afterlife," On page 79 he said from the meaning of Rephaim, when the body
dies, man enters a new kind of existence. He then will exist as a spirit
creature, and experiences what angels and other spirits experience. Just as
angels are disincarnate energy beings and are composed only of mind or mental
energy, and are capable of thought and speech without the need of a body, when
man dies, he becomes a disembodied energy being, and is capable of thought and
speech without the need of a body. This is nothing more than a desperate
attempt to prove that the
"immaterial, invisible part of man" has some kind of life
somewhere before and without the resurrection. Not a one of the eight passages where Rephaim is used says anything about
a Rephaim being like God and angels. Not one of the eight, or any passage in
the Bible says God and angels are nothing but thoughts. He must have made
that up out of thin air and hoped you would not see it is not in any of the
eight passages.I wonder if he sees how low he is making God if God were
like the Rephaim in the eight passages? That he is making God be only
"shades," "shadows," "ghosts," "name of the
dead in sheol."

(1). He has made God,
angels, and souls that are in mankind be nothing more than "energy beings”
after the judgment to be nothing more than mental thoughts with no substance. Although he did not mention God, he has reduced God to being
nothing more than thoughts, an "energy being." Morey's God has no
body, no substance of any kind; therefore, Morey's Heaven can exist only in the
mind of God; it cannot be a real place; he must some how make God, angels, and
souls all have the same thoughts, or the Heaven that was only in the thoughts of
each being would be an entirely different Heaven if their thoughts were not
exactly the same thoughts. Any being, angels, demons, saved souls, and lost
souls would each make their own Heaven or Hell in their thoughts, if any one
being had different thoughts they would have a different Heaven or Hell.

(2). He has made God
weak. Morey has made souls and angels be
disembodied energy being capable of thought and speech without the need of body
and they are described as "Are you
also become weak as we: have you become like unto us?" "God is a Spirit"
(John 4:24); Morey has spirits without bodies described as weak, as being
nothing more than mental thoughts, which according to him would include God
being described as weak, and being nothing more than mental thoughts. Is his
God just weak mental thoughts, is that what your God is like?

(3). He has made the
only difference in a soul after the death of the person and God to be only a
difference in intelligence. He says both are nothing but
mind without any substance.

(4). He has made God
limited. According to Morey, God does not have
any substance; God is only thoughts without a body. This has not entered the
mind of most who believe a person now has an immortal spirit in him, and if it
did most would reject it, but their belief that an immortal spirit is now in a
person means a soul, according to Morey, God and all heavenly being are nothing
more than thoughts without a body. Robert Morey and others who try to prove
persons now has an immortal spirit in them has been pushed into this belief. The
belief that a person has a dual nature dictates what they can believe about the
nature of God. They believe the immortal spirit that is now in a person cannot
now be seen for it has no substance; therefore, because God is spirit, then He
can have no substance; He can be only a mind with no body.

THOMAS JEFFERSON in a
letter to John Adams in 1820 said, "To say that God, angels, and the human
soul, are immaterial, is to say they are nothing. At what age of the church the
heresy of immaterialism crept in, I do not know; but a heresy is certainly
is—Jesus taught nothing of it."

(5). Morey has
developed Plato's doctrine that the body is a prison to a soul, which is set
free by the death of the body, far beyond what Plato ever did. To put a soul
(an "energy being" that is only "mind") back in a body at
the resurrection would be to put it back in a prison.

(6). Also, Morey's
Hell could only be mental anguish. There would be no body to torment. He has
made it impossible for Hell to be anything more than mental pain. Only
something in the mind of souls that are nothing but mind. None of the other
"orthodox Protestant" version of Hell could be possible; therefore,
what most Protestants have believed for centuries was wrong.

(7). Morey has made
Paul not know what he was talking about when he said, "It is sown a natural body;
it is raised a spiritual body...there
is also a spiritual body" (1
Corinthians 15:44). He cannot believe in the resurrection. How could he when he
has made a soul be composed only of "mind," just as he says the
angels and God now are composed only of mind? There could not be a mortal that "must put on immortality" (1
Corinthians 15:54), for his "energy being" is now just as immortal as
it will always be, and even before the death of the person it is now like God
and angels now are. There cannot be a resurrection of any kind of body, not one
in the image of Adam, or in the image of Christ. Not the earthly body, or the
new spiritual body for there will be no body, nothing but "mind."
There cannot be a resurrection of the "mind or mental energy," for at
death this "mind or mental energy" will be just as it will always be;
therefore, there could not be any kind
of resurrection.

What is their no substance soul and no substance Heaven? What could it be if it has
no substance? God made all things out of nothing. If a soul has no substance
while it is in a person, it will still be nothing after it leaves the person.
Are they saying when God made angels and souls that God made nothing out of
nothing; and this God who made nothing out of nothing is Himself nothing?

HEAVEN
IS A REAL PLACE: “For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the
presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24; 8:5). The holy place made
with hands was a real place that was a copy of the true holy place; a real
place could not be a copy of something that did not exist, which was only a
thought in a mind that has no substance. Christ entered “INTO HEAVEN ITSELF.”
If Christ and God were only thoughts with no substance, and Heaven was only
something in their minds, it would mean a thought entered into the thoughts
that were only in the mind of the thought; Morey
makes this and many other passages to be pure nonsense. “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I
would have told you; for I go to
prepare a place for you” (John
14:2-3). Thoughts do not have a house with dwelling places; Christ went to
prepare a place for “you” not for thoughts only. Heaven is a real place with real dwelling
places for a real “you.”You
cannot prepare a place in a place that is not a place. There is not a hint of
uncertainty in Christ’s statement about where He was going to prepare a place.

o“In my Father’s house.” Where is the father’s house? In Heaven, not
on Earth.

o“I go to prepare a place for you.” Christ was on Earth when He said, “I go.” Where does He say He is going?
To His Father’s house which is in Heaven.

NOTE: I have tried to give the views of the majority in each in the
above Protestants versions of Hell. In each of them, there are many individuals
and/or small groups who believe in many different variations of that believed
by the majority.

Summary: Protestants that believe in Hell are contradictory as to what
and where Hell will be.

oSome believe Hell to be a
lake of fire and brimstone.

oSome believe Hell will be
banishment from the presence of God.

oSome believe Hell to be
only mental anguish.

oSome believe God will give
most of mankind to Satan to torment, as he wants to.

oSome believe God will not
only be doing the tormenting, but He will have great pleasure in the tormenting
of souls.

oMany believe a version of
Hell that makes God be infinite cruel by creating million foreknowing that He
was creating them with no chance to not be in Hell.

oSome believe many other
contradictory versions of Hell.

EIGHT
OTHER VERSIONS OF HELL:

(1) The
Abraham's bosom, or the after judgment Hell. A newer version of Hell,Church of Christ, Christian Church. This
version is based almost entirely on an interpretation of Luke 16:19-31 (see
chapter eight, part one). Most members of the Church of Christ, the Christian
Church and some Protestants believe it although it is not generally accepted as
being orthodox or traditional Protestant. In this version all who do not obey
Christ will go to Hell, but not unto after the coming of Christ and the
judgment; and no one goes to Heaven before the judgment (no instant rapture).
According to this version, at death all are taken to an intermediate holding
place where the lost are tormented, and the saved are rewarded in a place
sometimes called "Abraham's bosom." Instead of all being in Heaven or
in Hell unto the second coming of Christ, all are either on the good side or on
the bad side of hades, and Christ will take them out of hades at His coming,
and judge them a second time to see whether He made a mistake the first time
and had put them on the wrong side of hades. A baby who has not come to the age
of accountability is not lost and will go to the good side of hades. After the
judgment God will personally do the tormenting for eternity of all souls that
had been in the lost persons, and Satan and his angels and all souls will be
tormented together.

This view has two places where God is going to torture the lost; (1) in
one side of hades that is a temporary place of torture, and will last only unto
the second coming of Christ, (2) and "Hell" which after the
resurrection will be a permanent place where God will torture most souls
without end. No deathless soul is now in Heaven or Hell, and it will not be
unto after the resurrection and judgment. This is the view I was taught from
the time I became a Christian, and I believed it a long time. I have many books
and tracts in which well-known preachers and teachers, such as H. Leo Boles, E.
M. Zerr, B. W. Johnson, and many others who teach this view; but lately it
seems to be dying out in the church, and is being replaced by going immediately
to Heaven or Hell at death without the Resurrection or Judgment, particularly
at funerals where preachers often say the soul that was in the dead person is
now in Heaven. Most all think of and speak of their loved ones, not souls, as
now being in Heaven with Jesus, not in Abraham's bosom unto the judgment.

“When a ‘faithful’
member dies, he or she does not ‘go’ to heaven or hell. The person is not
‘sentenced’ by Christ to heaven or hell until ‘Judgment Day’…There will be a
resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous (Acts 24:15).”

http://bible-the-real-world.awardspace.com/html/church_of_christ.html

(2)Edward Fudge version: The short Hell, God will torment the
lost in Hell for a short time, then Hell will end:He uses the name Hell as if it was a Bible name, but thinks it
will last for only a limited time, and will end with the total destruction of
souls in it. He may have Hell and the wrath and fury of God at the judgment
confused (“The Fire That Consumes,” 1982 edition). Roger Dickson believes the
duration of Hell will fit the crime, and then will end. It will be short for
some souls, and longer for other souls. He says, "After the stripes have
been given, then the destruction occurs, for which there is no reverse"
page 162ff, "Life, Death, And Beyond." Is he renaming the Judgment
Day, and calling it "Hell?" If I understand him right, he thinks the
souls that had been in the lost will go to Hell, but the not so bad souls will
not be tormented as long as the very bad. After the "punishment matches
the crime" he says they will then be destroyed (page 163). (1) "Shall be beaten with many
stripes" (Luke 12:47). This is used to prove there will be an end
after the stripes. He seem to think, "Beaten
with few stripes" could not be as long as "beaten with many stripes;" therefore, could not take
forever; some souls would be tormented longer than others, but the torment will
end with death for all. (2) This short Hell is different from the Church of God
short Hell in that it will not be on this earth, and there will be no second
chance, it will end with death from which there will be no resurrection.

Fate of the unsaved: Brother
Fudge believes there is a Hell and all the lost will be in it, but believes it
will be a short Hell that will end with the death of those that has been in
Hell for a while, and they will be tormented by God for as long as they are in
Hell. He says, “They will be sentenced to
hell where they will die,” but did not give one passage that tells us the
lost will “be sentenced to hell.”

The fate of those not in
Christ according to:

oAccording
to the Bible

oDeath
– Resurrection – Judgment – Second death

oAccording
to Fudge

oDeath
– Resurrection – Judgment – Torment in Hell – Second
death

During the Judgment
there most likely will be fear and regret when the lost see what they have lost
by not being a Christian. Fudge then adds a place between the Judgment and the
second death that is not in the Bible, names it “Hell” and says God will
torment the lost, some with more torment, some with less torment before the
second death.

We are sometimes told
there will be life and torment after the judgment in the lake of fire a short
time for some, but a longer time for others. There is nothing in the Bible
about some souls being tormented by God in the lake of fire longer than He will
torment other souls, or about any place were God will torment persons or souls
that had been in persons after the judgment; that there will be such a place is
a 100% made-up addition to the Bible to teach God will torment most in a shout
Hell before He lets them die. It is persons that commits “murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all
liars” (Revelation 21:8) not souls; it is the persons that committed these
sins that will die, not souls that cannot die that will die because of the sins
of the persons they were in.

Death, pain, and torment: Natural death can be
painless, or with much pain. A person can die in their sleep with no pain, or
suffer for years and die slowly.

Violent death is the
same. It can be quick and painless, or death can come slowly with much pain.
Two persons killed in an explosion; one is blown to bits instantly with no time
for pain, the other one is hurt badly and takes hours or even days to die with
much pain.

After the judgment,
death, not being tormented by God, is the punishment, the black darkness of
endless nothing. There is nothing said about some dying will little pain, and
other dying with much suffering. Not anything about God tormenting any after
their resurrection and before their second death, not for a short time or a
longer time, nothing about tormenting them in a place called Hell or any other
place.

F.
LAGARD SMITH, a teacher of Bible at Lipscomb University in his book, “After
Life, A Glimpse of Eternity Beyond Death’s Door,” also teachers there is a
Hell, but a Hell that will end, no one will be tormented without end. He says
on page 191 that sooner or later there is a point that the torment in Hell will
end.

"Beaten with few stripes" is
in a parable addressed to those of that day, it is not an actual event after
the resurrection and Judgment Day with God beating with a whip (Luke 12:41;
12:49-53). In the Law of Moses God limited "many
stripes" to 40 lashes, never more than 40 (Deuteronomy 25:3; Luke
12:47; Acts 16:23; 2 Corinthians 11:24). According to him the stripes will end,
but with many the "many
stripes," which was no more then 40 is used by those that believe Hell
is endless torment to prove that God will forever give not only the 40, but
stripes without end, an uncountable number of stripes to those in Hell. In the
parable in Luke 12:47-48 both the “beaten
with few strips” and the “beaten with
many stripes” are changed to “beaten with an endless uncountable number of
blows given by God to be a countless number at the same time He is burning them
in the lake of fire; this change that puts both the “few stripes” and the “many
stripes” in Hell must be made to make the stripes go on being given by God
for eternity and never stop, for if the “few
stripes” were not an endless number and God ever stopped His beating, Hell
would have ended. If there were a Hell that had no end, after the “few stripes” reached a number that no
man could count, the stripes would have just begin. All the details that make
up any of the parables cannot be taken literally. The point to parables is that
they all teach a lesson. The lesson to this parable is that to whoever much is
given much will be required, we are to use whatever ability we have whether
much of little. More is required in this lifetime of the person that has much
ability than of the person that has little ability, but even the person that
has little ability must use what he or she has. Nothing is taught in this
parable about any punishment after the judgment. To in any way say the cruel
never ending Hell as it is taught today where God will be burning living souls
for all eternally to be spoken of as “few
stripes” is nothing more that mockery.

Death and only death is the wages of sin; there is no passage in the
Bible that says wages of sin for a soul that will be in “Hell” for a short time
any more than there is one that says souls will be in a “Hell” that has no end.
The lake of fire is not a real literal lake of fire, it is a symbol picture of
death, any living being cast into a lake of fire would be dead almost
instantly. John clearly said the lake of fire “is the second death” (Revelation 20:8), not life for a short time
for some, but a longer life of torment for others. Their punishment is not
being tormented by God unto they have paid for their sins and then the torment
will end; their punishment is an eternal death, an eternal punishment, (Matthew
25:46). A place called “Hell” does not exist in the Bible, not a short Hell, or
an eternal Hell. Hell is altogether a pagan teaching of man.

For
those that believe in an endless Hell, “few
stripes” presents a problem. As Robert A. Taylor said in “Rescue From
Death,” if a persons that receives the “few
stripes” received but one stripe a year, after a trillion years that person
would have received a trillion stripes with countless trillions of stripes
without end yet to come. There is no way that a countless number of trillions
could be call a “few stripes.” He
said, “The traditional view of Hell is fundamentally a nightmare beyond
comprehension,” “Rescue From Death,” page 99.

This short Hell were God will torment for a while and then the lost will
pay the wages of sin, death, is taught by Timothy J. Barnett in “Endless Hell
Ended,” 1987, and by many others as a way to make God be less evil then many of
the orthodox Protestant versions of Hell have made Him.

(3)
Christadelphians version of Hell:This version says those who
never heard the Gospel will never be raised. Death is the end of them. Only
those who heard the Gospel will be raised at the second coming of Christ, and
judged to see whether they were faithful. The faithful will have eternal life
on Earth, which will be restored to be like Eden before Adam sinned. The
unfaithful of those who heard the Gospel, and were raised will be annihilated
by the second death.

(4) Church of God version of Hell (and others): According to this version both Heaven and Hell will be on
this earth. After the resurrection of earthly bodies on this restored earth,
all will be given a second chance to accept Christ. Most will, but the few who
will not accept Christ will suffer the second death. Their torment will end in
death from which there will never be a resurrection. The saved will be raised
and live on the earth restored to be the way it was before Adam sinned, with a
body like Adam before he was put out of the garden. No one will ever be in
Heaven. I have not been able to find how they think Adam's body was different
before he was put out of the garden than it was after. Many Premillennialists
who are in most Protestant churches believe this version of Hell, or one that
is very similar to it.

(5) Universalist version of Hell, The "age
lasting" Hell: This Hell will last
for only an age; then all will be saved. Universalist calls it a time of
"attitude adjustments," or "age-during correction." They do
not see it as God torturing souls in a literal lake or anything like that, they
see it as simply a time when God will be correcting or teaching them further
unto they are fit for His kingdom. All, even the most evil, will eventually end
up in Heaven. See chapter nine, “Universalist – The ‘Age Lasting’ Hell.”

(6) Seventh Day Advent version of Hell: They believe that at the second coming of Christ the
unrighteous will be kill, the righteous will be taken back to Heaven for a
1,000 years. During the 1,000 years only Satan and his angels will inhabit the
earth. At the end of the 1,000 years Christ will return to earth with the
saved, and the unrighteous will be raised for judgment. Satan gathers his
angels, and will the help of the resurrected unrighteous attempt to interfere
with the judgment, they will be destroyed in a military battle that will take
place outside of Jerusalem, destroyed in the same way Sodom was turned into
ashes; they will never be in Hell. The judgment and destruction of the lost
will take place on this earth. Their Hell will be on this earth and will last
only unto those in it are burned too ashes, the second death. The saved will
live forever with earthly bodies on a restored earth on which there will be no
evil. They believe they will live forever on all this earth, not just in
Jerusalem, much as we now do, they will build houses, plant crops, and meet
together each Sabbath Day. No one will be in Heaven after the 1,000 years.

Just as with the
Church of God version of Hell, many Premillennialists who are in most
Protestant churches also believe this version of Hell, or one that is very near
the same. The number of those who are called Protestant but do not believe any
of the orthodox Protestant versions of Hell is large and growing.

(7) Latter-day Saints version of Hell (Mormons):They believe there will be three Kingdoms, Celestial, Terrestrial,
and Telestial Kingdoms. According to Mormons all spirit were once in Heaven,
some spirits were judged worthily to come to earth where they will end up in
three states of “glory.” The highest, the Celestial Kingdoms will always live
on this earth with cities, houses, animals, can have children and all things
much as we now have. The two lower Kingdoms, the Terrestrial and Telestial
Kingdoms will not be on this earth, but they do not seem to know or do not tell
outsiders just where they will be, but no soul in these two kingdoms will not
be in Heaven where they were before they came to earth, and they will not be on
earth; those in these two Kingdoms will not be allowed to have children. All
will be raised from the dead except for the sons of perdition, the once
faithful Mormons that become apostates and left the Mormon Church; I have not
been able to find if they yet have any revelation about what will be their fate
other then they will have little or no glory. Those who are not Mormons can go
no higher then the lower Telestial Kingdom, which seems to be a very low state;
their souls will not be able to be on this earth, not able to have children,
and these souls will not be in Heaven where they were at one time before they
came to earth.

The Latter-day Saints
Millennium is unlike any other version of the Millennium; in there Millennium
they have both mortals and resurrected immortal living together on earth having
children, building houses, and doing most all things that normal people do now.

(8) The grave is Hell version (Jehovah’s Witnesses) Jehovah’s Witness do not
believe in the resurrection of the lost; when the lost die, they are dead
forever.

Jehovah’s Witness believe the grave is Hell, and all go to it at death.
There is no knowledge or torment in this Hell, just sleep or death. Some from
many different groups believe this version of Hell. They get support mostly
from the older translations like the King James Version, and most who believe
it think the newer translations that translate only Gehenna into Hell are
wrong. They believe Gehenna is a trash dump, not Hell. The Hell they believe in
is going on now with all the dead in it, both the good and the bad are asleep
in the grave, and the souls that are asleep in this Hell but only the saved
will wake up at the Resurrection. All the dead are now unconscious, and there
is no torment of the wicked or reward of the righteous in "Hell"
where all the dead, both the good and the bad now are. In this version Hell
will end at the resurrection, and there will be no Hell after the resurrection.
Hell is the “common grave of mankind” where all people go when they die and
they are not conscious there. This version is nothing more than a renaming of
sheol and hades. In today's English Hell has come to mean a place of eternal
torment after death, and to translate hades into Hell is an untrue translation.
The grave is Hell was not the intentions of the translators who first put the
word "Hell" into the Bible, the grave is Hell is not the way it would
have been understood by English speaking people when it was first used by the
translators, or the way it is understood today by most that are not Jehovah’s
Witnesses. Jehovah’s Witness believe that only 144,000 chosen people will ever
enter Heaven, and they will be changed to a spiritual body to live in Heaven
where they will forever live and help Jesus govern the church that will forever
be on this earth. At the end of the Millennium all that has not been make
perfect during the Millennium, or did not just cease to exist at death will be
destroyed in Gehenna. All but the 144,000 that have been made perfect will live
forever on this restored earth.

A.
B. ROBINSON, September 1996 (A Jehovah's Witnesses): "We do not have the
word 'hell' in the NWT. We translate gehenna as gehenna, hades as hades and
sheol as sheol. By doing this we can get the true import of these words.
Gehenna is a garbage dump and sheol and hades often refer to the grave. We
believe everyone who dies goes to 'hell' or sheol (hades). The dead are
unconscious, asleep if you will (Ecc 9:5,19 and 1 Thes 4:13-16) and will remain
such until they are resurrected. We also believe that 'hell' will be emptied,
as is clearly stated in Rev 20:13. The persons who were in hell, both the
righteous and the unrighteous (Acts 24:15) will be resurrected and judged.
Those who are deserving of it will then be thrown into the lake of fire, the
second death (Rev 20:14,15)."

BRIAN HOLT in an e-mail to me said, "JW's do not have the word
‘hell’ in the NWT," then he said in the e-mail that everyone who dies goes
to Hell. If Hell is not in their Bible, how do they know all the dead are now
in Hell?

“That is what Jehovah’s Witnesses teach.” I have been told that
what I believe "is what Jehovah's Witnesses have been teaching for
years." One person said to me, “You believe the same thing Jehovah's
Witnesses believe. Why don't you join them and leave us alone?”

CLARK PINNOCK said, "It
seems that a new criterion of truth has been discovered which says that if
Adventists or liberals hold any view, that view must be wrong. Apparently a
truth claim can be decided by its association and does not need to be tested by
public criteria in open debate. Such an argument, though useless in intelligent
discussion, can be effective with the ignorant who are fooled by such
rhetoric.” Four Views on Hell, page 161.

The problem with this
is (1) I do not believe as they do, that the grave is Hell; That I believe what
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe is an absolute false charge; it is made for only
one reason, to seek to scare anyone way by associating it with atheists,
evolutionists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and others; I think
those that do such are not being honest. (2) That most all denominations, whether they are occults,
liberals, or whatever, teach many things that the Bible teaches, and many
things that the Bible does not teach. Nothing is right or wrong because a
denomination teaches it, not even right or wrong if the Jehovah's Witnesses
denomination teaches it. It is right if the Bible teaches it, or wrong if the
Bible does not teach it. Catholic, Baptist, Jehovah's Witnesses, Church of God,
and all others each teach many things that the Bible teaches, and each one
teaches many things that the Bible does not teach. Anything is right if the
Bible teaches it even if the Jehovah's Witnesses teach it, and wrong if the
Bible does not teach it. Jehovah’s
Witnesses teach adultery is a sin; is it wrong to teach that adultery is a sin
because Jehovah’s Witnesses teach it to be? To say, "That is what the
Jehovah's Witnesses teach," is said for the same reason the Baptist says,
"That is water salvation," or "That is Campbellism." Their real problem is not that one of the
occults teach it, but that they have no other answer, and know that they can
turn many off just by saying, "That is what Jehovah's Witnesses
teach," just as the Baptist did with, "That is water salvation."
They could not show that a person can be saved without baptism; therefore, they
would say, "You believe in water salvation" for they knew this would
make others prejudice and not believe the Bible. Now the same thing is being
done to anyone who does not believe in Hell by saying, "You are nothing
but a Jehovah's Witnesses," even
though what I believe is far from what the Jehovah'sWitnesses teach, they believe there is a Hell, but it is going on
now, and I do not believe the Bible says anything about any kind of Hell; not
one that is going on now, or one that will be at any time after death.

The
Moslem religion believes in eternal torment; can we say it is wrong because
those who believe in eternal torment believe something the Moslems teach? No, eternal
torment is wrong because the Bible does not teach it.

Why? What is the real reason they say that it is Jehovah's Witnesses
teaching? I think one reason is that they just do not want to deal with it. Do
not want to take the time. Another reason is the same reason the Baptist call
us "Campbellism" and say, "You believe in water salvation."
The truth is that if Jehovah's Witnesses did believe as I do (they do not, but
even if they did) as long as the Bible teaches it, I would not care if it were
what they believed, but would say that it is great that they believe the Bible
on that point, and would wish that they believed the Bible on all points. If
you made two lists, one a list of things any denomination believes that is not
in the Bible, and a list of things it believes that is in the Bible, both lists
would be long. The persons who say "That is Jehovah's Witnesses
teaching" believes many of the same things that would be on the list of
things the Jehovah's Witnesses believes. Some of the many things Jehovah's
Witnesses teach that I do not believe.

1. Jesus was not the Son of God.

2. The Millennium.

3. Only 144,000 will go to
Heaven.

4. All the rest of the saved
will live forever on this earth for all eternity.

5. They don't believe in blood
transfusions.

6. Hell is the grave and all the
dead are now in Hell. Unfortunately, it is not true that they do not believe in
Hell, but Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in a Hell that is now going on. The Hell
they believe in is not the God Slandering Hell that many Protestants believe
in, but they do believe in Hell, just not one of the many orthodox Protestant
versions of Hell although many Premillennialists who are called orthodox
Protestants believe much as they do, that Hell is the grave.

Unto the resurrection death is
death, not any kind of life, or any kind of Hell anyplace.

If, "That is what Jehovah's Witnesses believes" makes
anything wrong, it is such a broad argument that there is nothing in the Bible
that is not destroyed by it, for there is no Bible teaching that is not
believed by many false religions.

Probable origin of this version of Hell:
Sheol is translated Hell in the King James Version thirty-one times, and grave
thirty-one times. It puts all in Hell or the grave together, both the good and
the bad, and the grave is a place that those in it know nothing, a Hell that
will end at the resurrection. If one believes the mistranslation of the King
James Version, then he or she must believe the grave is Hell version of Hell
for the Jehovah’s Witnesses belief about Hell is clearly taught in the Old
Testament of the King James Version. The Jehovah's Witnesses and others who
believe this version have all the proof they need in the mistranslations in the
King James Version; I cannot see anyway that a person that believes the King
James Version just as it is would not be forced believe in the same Hell that
the Jehovah’s Witnesses believes in, their Hell is clearly taught in it.

The Bible
version of Hell: There is no Bible version of Hell. Both the name Hell and
the concept, a place where God will forever torment the souls that had been in
most of mankind was not known about in Old or New Testament times. Christ or
Paul used neither the place nor the name. An eternal place of torment for souls
was not known about by anyone unto long after the last page of the Bible.

WHICH HELL DO YOU
BELIEVE IN? Most
versions of Hell are based on the belief that:

A person has a soul in them that is immortal
from birth and is not subject to death.

That death is not death, the dead are more
alive then the living, "You
shall not surely die."

(1). Some believe Satan is the tormenter. According to Jonathan Edwards
and most Hell fire preachers, Satan will be doing the tormenting of all that
are in Hell forever.

(2). Some believe God is the tormenter. Today many believe God will be
doing the tormenting.

(3). Some denominations believe Hell will be on this earth.

(4). Others believe Hell will only last for a while; but
will end with all that are in Hell being saved and going to Heaven.

(5). Some believe Hell will only last unto the ones in it
have paid for their sins, and then they will be destroyed.

(6). Some believe Hell is hot.

(7). Some believe Hell is cold.

(8). Some believe Hell is dark.

(9). Some believe Hell is Metaphorical, it is not
literally hot, cold or dark; we cannot understand what it is really like, and
are given pictures to tell us how bad it is.

(10). Some believe Hell is only mental anguish.

(11). Some believe Hell is under the earth.

(12). Some believe Hell is who knows where. Most, but not
all, now realize there is not a place of torment under the earth, and have
moved it. Now who knows where they think Hell is, maybe somewhere out in space.

(13). Some believe Hell exists now, and the lost dead are
now being tormented in it.

(14). Some believe Hell will not exist unto after the judgment.

(15). Some believe Hell now exists with the angels that sinned
in it, but no person will be in Hell unto after the judgment.

(16). Some believe Hell is a place of separation from God
without any torment from God, a place where God is not at.

(17). Some believe that although
God is omnipresent (present in all places at the same time), nevertheless God is not present in Hell. They
believe those in Hell are separated from God, they believe death is separation
from God, and the second death is an eternal Hell, and at the same time they
believe God is there tormenting them and gives them life. All life comes from
God. He would have to be present and not present at the same time. The lost
would be separated from God, and not separated from God simultaneously, for God
would be wherever they were separated from Him if He were doing the tormenting.

(18). If you go back in time 50
or 100 years, most all preachers were teaching "Hell" to be a place
of "fire and brimstone." Today "fire and brimstone" is
almost never used by preachers or in today's theology. Do you believe in the
"Hell" of today or the "Hell" of 100 years ago?

There is no majority
view of Hell today as there was in the Dark Age;
no matter what view of Hell a person has that view is only a small part of
those that believe in Hell; if a person believes one of the many versions of
Hell, they must disbelieve all the other versions; therefore, every one that
believes in Hell disagrees with the vast majority that believe in Hell. Everyone that believes in Hell is in
conflict with most others that also believe in Hell. Believes in Hell are
becoming more divided as time goes by; even if there were a Hell it would not
possible for more than one version of Hell to be the truth; therefore, all the
other versions, the majority that believe in Hell are vain worship (Matthew
15:9).

DIVISIONS OVER WHAT
WILL BE IN HELL? What part of a person will be
in Hell? It has been believed by most that it is a bodiless soul that will be
in Heaven or Hell, but now many are saying no it is not a soul, but it will be
a bodiless spirit that is the immortal being that is in a person, that a soul
is not immortal; therefore, (1) some say it is a soul that is now in a person
that will be in Heaven or Hell, (2) but others now say, not so, it is a spirit
that will be in Heaven or Hell. Not only are there many divisions on what Hell
is, there are also divisions on which immaterial, bodiless being will be in
Hell. One of the many examples of those that have switched from believing a
soul is immortal to a spirit being the immortal something that is in a person
is Robert L. Kramer in “Present Truth,” volume 10, page 12.

DIVISIONS OVER WHEN A
SOUL, OR A SPIRIT WILL BE IN HELL?
When will a soul or a spirit be in Hell? At death, or not unto after the
resurrection and judgment? Many say Hell begins at death; many say no soul or
no spirit will be in Hell unto after the judgment; the strange thing is that
there are many that say a soul at one time, then the same person will say a
spirit at another time.

HELL HAS BEEN MOVED: Pagan philosophers mostly believed a soul was somewhere
underground unto it was reincarnated. The first time Hell is used in the King
James Version, it is a place on this earth, and is the punishment and
scattering of the nation of Israel (Deuteronomy 32:22-26). "Though they
dig into Hell" (Amos 9:27 King James Version). Most of the "church
fathers," and the Church in the Dark Age both believed Hell was
underground. In the Middle Age Hell was inside of the earth as it is in, “The
Divine Comedy ” by Dante Alighieri. Both the Catholic Church and the
"Apostle's creed," which is used by many Protestants says Christ
descended into Hell at His death; and preached to souls in prison. Many
encyclopedias and lexicons still say this.

THE NEW OXFORD AMERICAN
DICTIONARY says, “hell
‘hel’ a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual
realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally
depicted as a place of perpetual fire beneath the earth where the wicked
are punished after death.”

When I was a child, I
heard repeatedly that the Devil (a name used by many to be a name of Satan)
lived under the ground, and he would get you if you were bad. Now almost no one
believes Hell is under ground; it has been moved to some dark place on the
backside of some far away no one knows where place.Most who believed Hell to be under the earth also believed the
earth will end at the coming of Christ; I have never heard them explain how the
earth will be destroyed, but the Hell that is under ground (inside of the
earth) will last forever.O-well, one place is as good as any other for there is no Bible
teaching for any of them, they are all man made and believing any of them is to
believe a lie. "But in vain do they
worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men" (Matthew
15:9). The only sure thing is that what men believe about Hell is that Hell is
always changing to suit the times and the denominations.

BELIEVERS IN HELL must
do away with death. If death is real, if when God
said death, God meant what He said, then Hell cannot be.

BELIEVERS IN HELL must
prove that men now have an immortal soul that is dwelling in them. Must prove that there is an immaterial, invisible something in a
person that has no substance, and this something that no one knows what it is,
is now just as immortal as it will be after the judgment; and this who know
what this “soul” is that Christ will save; and whatever “it” is, not the
person, will be in Heaven.

BELIEVERS IN HELL must
make words like destroy, perish, die, death, lost be used only with a
theological sense. If they are used, "In
the fair, stipulated, and well-established meaning of the terms," then
Hell cannot be.

BELIEVERS IN HELL must
prove that Hell is in the Bible, both the name and the particular place they
call Hell. If they do not prove there is
a Hell, but teach it, they have added to the Bible.

BELIEVERS IN HELL must
prove that the "nehphesh" animals have in Genesis 1:20; 1:21; 1:24;
1:30; 2:19 is mortal, but the same "nehphesh" men have in Genesis 2:7
is immortal.

FROM WHERE DID HELL
COME? It came from pagan philosophers, and was brought into the
church along with Purgatory, the sale of indulgences, Limbo, worship of Mary
and saints, Nether World, Holy Water, the rosary, forbidding Priests to marry,
the crucifix, forbidding eating of meat on Friday, candle-burning, and many
other teachings; and was opposed by such men as Luther, Tyndale, Moses Lord, E.
D. Slough, Ashley Sidney Johnson, Elias Smith, and many others. It came into
the church in the Dark Age from Pagan Greek philosophers and writers like Dante
Aligheri (1265-1321), "The Divine Comedy,” and Milton's "Paradise
Lost." They added things like Satan has a red suit, horns, and pitchfork
and is forever tormenting the damned. Aligheri was a pagan who believed the
teaching of Plato on a soul being immortal, and his book "The Divine
Comedy" is basically Plato's view of a soul. This view of Hell was adopted
in the Middle Age Church to create fear of leaving the church. The church in
the Dark Age, and the translators of the King James Bible were more influenced
by this Pagan philosophy and writers of that time then they were from the
teaching of God.

(1). Hell and other pagan
teaching were brought into the Bible by reinterpreting four words fifty-seven
times in the King James Version, but much fewer times in later
translations, and none at all in many translations. The American Standard
Version, which many say is the most accurate translation ("This honored
version of 1901, long held to be the most accurate translation in the English
language" Star Bible catalog, page 3, 1996), uses it 13 times; and even
then has a footnote that says, "Gr. Gehenna" or "Gr.
Tartarus."

GROWLER 1995 ENCYCLOPEDIA ASPS: "In Greek Mythology, Hades is the
underworld ruled by the god of that name, who is also known as Pluto; in Nurse
Mythology, Hel is a cold and shadowy subterranean realm." Both Hel and
Hell are from the same root word- "Kel."

THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY, page 2108 says, "KEL-1. O-grade
from kal 1. A Hell, from Old English Hell, Hell; B HEL, from Old Nurse Hel, the
underworld, goddess of death."

COMPTON'S 1995 ENCYCLOPEDIA, "Hell and Hades." "There is
no fully developed teaching about Hell in the New Testament…Only in the course
of later church history was it elaborated into official church doctrine."

ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA, Volume 14, page 81, "Much confusion and
misunderstanding has been caused through the early translators of the Bible
persistently rendering the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades and Gehenna by the
word hell. The simple transliteration of these words by the translators of the
revised editions of the Bible has not sufficed to appreciably clear up this
confusion and misconception."

WIKIPEDIA, the free Encyclopedia: “The modern English word Hell is derived from
Old English hel, helle(about 725
AD to refer to a nether world of the dead) reaching into the Anglo-Saxon pagan
period, and ultimately from Proto-Germanic *halja, meaning "one who covers
up or hides something". (3) The word has cognates in related Germanic languages such
as Old Frisian helle, hille, Old Saxon hellja, Middle Dutch helle(modern Dutch hel), Old High German
helle(Modern German Hölle), and
Gothic halja. (3) Subsequently, the word was used to transfer a
pagan concept to Christian theology and its vocabulary.” From the article “Hell.”

DYREL COLLINS, “We
assume that the word ‘Hell’ is a Bible word chosen by God to reveal his will.
It is neither an O. T. nor N. T. word, but rather the word chosen by Bible
translators to translate, Sheol (Grave), Hades…Gehenna (Valley of Hinnom) and
Tartarus (The abode of angels that sinned). Thus one word is chosen to
translate four different places and ideas. The
word ‘Hell’ therefore came to have a meaning beyond the concept involved in
each word, but borrowing certain aspects from each and adding the idea of
everlasting conscious torment for a soul which cannot die.” “Immortality:
Only In Christ,” Star Bible Publications, 2002, church of Christ.

CSONKA said, "Every good Bible student know Hades is not Hell"
Truth Magazine, 1995, page 17. Then why do so many in the Lord's church teach
it is?

THE
DICTIONARY OF NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY: "The word Gehenna does not occur in
the LXX or Greek literature...In contrast with later Christian writings and
ideas, the torments of hell are not described in the NT...Neither does the NT
contain the idea that Satan is the prince of Gehenna, to whom sinners are
handed over for punishment." Volume 2, page 208-209.

Clinton D. Hamilton, who believed in Hell, said, "The New Testament
is loaded with metaphors that describe Hell," and then he says Gehenna is one
of the metaphors. On the page before he said that Gehenna is not used in
secular Greek literature, not used in the Septuagint, and not by Josephus in
the last part of the first century in any of his writings. When he said they
did not use Gehenna, he is using it to mean Hell; therefore, he is saying Hell
was not used by any of the above, neither is it in any of the Apocryphal books.

(2). Not in vocabulary:
Heaven and Earth are named together about 30 times, and each is named
separately 100's of times, but not one time is Hell named in the Bible, or even
spoken of. Why? No doubt, it would have been if Hell was real and there is such
a place. We are told not to swear by Heaven or Earth (Matthew 5:34), but today
men swear by Hell more than both Heaven and Earth together. Why were they not
told not to swear by Hell? It was because Hell is a word that was not in their
vocabulary? No word with the meaning of today's English Hell was used in the
ancient writing as a swear word, or any other way; no such word was in their
vocabulary, and they knew of no such place. The concept of the place called Hell, or the name Hell is not in the
Bible, and does not occur in any writing of either the Hebrews or the Greeks
unto long after the Bible. The Old Testament Hebrew, or the New Testament Greek
has no word that is even close to today's English word "Hell." It
did not exist unto long after the last book of the Bible was written.

How do we know about this place called
Hell? Where did Hell come from? Not by faith that comes by hearing God's
word. It is from the doctrines and precepts of men (Matthew 15:9). It was not
used in the first century because it was a place they knew nothing about. The
word "Hell" is of Saxon origin about the 3rd to 5th century A. D. and
originally was any covered over place such a roof or a grave. The nearest thing
I can find to the English word Hell is in Greek Mythology and Nurse Mythology
(According to Socrates, Plato and other Greek philosopher), was a shadowy
subterranean realm somewhere under the earth where souls went unto they could
be reincarnated; but this shadowy place was far from being as terrible or as
dreadful a place as today's Hell is, and "souls" would only be in it
unto they were reincarnated into a new earthly bring. This underground place
did not have the name Hell, and is nothing like the Hell that grew out of it in
the Dark Age.

RUSSELL BOATMAN, Dean at Saint Louis Christian College, Christian
Church, "Three hundred years or so ago the word 'Hell' was commonly used
to refer to any dark or foreboding place. A grave could be referred to by that
term without readers or hearers automatically envisioning 'the lake of fire,
which is the second death' (Rev. 20:15). The hole dug in the ground to receive
the body of a deceased loved one is certainly a foreboding place. A prison,
dungeon, lunatic asylum, or a valley such as the valley of Hinnom outside of
Jerusalem with equal propriety could be spoken of as 'Hell' three or four
hundred years ago. That is no longer so...in our time 'Hell' has a fairly
settled meaning...its use conjures up visions of the awesome lake of fire
judgment reserved for sinners" "What The Bible Says, The End
Time," 1991, College Press, page 305.

CANON FARRAR, "Hell has entirely changed its old harmless sense of
dim under-world: and that meaning, as it now does, to myriads of readers...it
conveys meanings which are not to be found in any of the New or Old Testament
words for which it is presented as an equivalent" Excursus II,
"Eternal Hope."

T.
L. ANDREWS said our English word Hell has come to mean the eternal abode of the
sinner where this tormenting punishment takes place? Florida College Lectures,
1997, page 168.

A
doctrine as terrible as Hell must not be assumed, but demonstrated by unquestionable
proof. Such proof is not in the Bible. Heaven is in the Bible over 600 times,
but Hell not one time. Why? The Bible is full of warnings. Paul warned that
many "shall not inherit the kingdom
of God" (1 Corinthians 5:9), but he never said anyone would "go
to Hell." Paul said he declared the
whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27); yet not one time (even in the King James
Version) did he use the word Hell. Why?

When? The English word Hell did not exist in Paul's time; it therefore
come to mean the eternal abode of sinners long after the New Testament; it came
from man, not God. Therefore, Paul or the Bible could not, and did not use it.

If Hell had been a
real place, which was known about in the time of Christ, others of that time
would have known about it and used its name, but none did. Gehenna was the name of a
real place near Jerusalem (the city dump), which the people near Jerusalem
would know about, and they have would understand what Christ was saying when He
used its name as a place of destruction. The rest of the world would not know
about Jerusalem's trash dump, or know what its name was, and would not have
understood. If Paul had used the name Gehenna in Rome or in writing to
Gentiles, it is unlikely that any would have known what or where Gehenna was.
When the Greek philosophy about the underworld was brought into the church by
the "church fathers," what Christ had said about Gehenna was made to
order for them to misuse, which they did by changing “Gehenna” into “Hell.”
Gehenna was soon mistranslated into Hell. Whatever is not taught in the Bible
cannot be a Bible doctrine. If it is the doctrine of man, is it not sinful to teach
it as God's word?

Hell is not a Bible word. It is a word chosen by Bible Translators to
translate four Bible words, sheol, hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus. Not one of the
four has the meaning of Hell as it is used today. Not only is there no Hebrew or
Greek word for Hell, but also at first even the English word Hell did not mean
a place of torment after death as it does today; like many English words it has
had a radical change of meaning. In Old English it was a covered place. A
farmer would say, "I helled my potatoes" meaning he put them in a
hole and covered them to keep them from the cold. Helling a house meant to
cover it with a roof, and those that did the roofing were called “helliers.”
Helmet, a covering for the head is derived from the same word; the word “Hell”
as the name is used today has no resemblance to the Old English word, in Old
English the meaning of Hell had nothing to do with a soul being tormented by
God. Hell was never the best translations of hades (to cover in a grave), but
formerly it would have been acceptable in Old English. It is not an acceptable
translation of hades in modern English, and has been abandoned by most of the
newer translations. When the King James Version was made, the doctrine of Hell
was completely developed, and the translation of sheol and hades into Hell were
a mistranslation. Most likely a deliberate mistranslation for in 1611 the name
“Hell” had taken on the modern meaning of a place of torment after death
although it was believed by most at that time that Hell was someplace deep
inside the earth.

Those who believe in Hell use the word as if both the place and the name
are used repeatedly in the Bible. Their proof texts are metaphors, parables,
and symbolical language as is found in the book of Revelation. If there were a
place as terrible as Hell, why is it never spoken of in clear words that the
common person could not misunderstand? If Hell were real, it would be strange
if a doctrine as important as Hell would have been would have to depend on an
interpretation of a parable or symbolical language.

(3). Not in early creeds, the
two earliest creeds, The Apostles Creed, traditionally miss ascribed to the 12
Apostles, and the Nicean Creed, 325 A. D., were both doctrinal statements
saying what those that used them believed, but neither one contained the
concept of Hell.

(4). Today's preaching – versus –first century preaching. Heaven is taught throughout the Bible (used about 635 times in
the New American Standard Bible), but there is nothing about today's Hell. Adam
was warned that he would die if he ate, but not that he would go to Hell. Moses
warned about death to those who did not keep the law, but he said nothing about
Hell. The Bible is as silent as a tomb on it. It is beyond belief that there would not be many clear and unmistakable
warning about Hell if there were such a place. There are many clear and
unmistakable warning that the wages of sin is death, but not a one about Hell
or an eternal life of torment.

HOW HELL WAS PUT INTO
THE BIBLE AND IS BEING KEPT IN THE BIBLE: WHITLOCK, Seibles Road Church of Christ bulletin, August 9, 1998.
"Jesus said it (Hell) was a place where 'the fire...never shall be
quenched...Hell is further described as a place where"

Christ did not say anything about Hell, but was using Gehenna as a
metaphor of destruction; but Whitlock changed the name Gehenna that Christ used
to another name - Hell, and in the same sentence he quotes only a part of a
sentence used by Christ, adds to it, and makes it all one sentence. In doing so
he has put the word Hell into the mouth of Christ, but when he make Hell be a
real place he must deny that Gehenna is a metaphor.

(1). He changes one proper noun into another proper noun, but does
not tell us from where he got the proper noun "Hell."

(2). He makes Christ say something He did not say.

(3). He says, "Hell is further described as a place
where," but he did not say where it is described as a place. Hell is not
described as a place, or is not described in any other way in the Bible.

This is the very way the words of Christ were first misused by some of
the so called church fathers in about the third century and after, long before
it was mistranslated into any Bible translation. Unto after the end of the
second century only a few of the "church fathers" taught that men
have an immaterial, invisible being in them that is immortal, and it was not
unto later that Hell came into being. The so called “church fathers” learned
just as we do, from the Bible or from the teaching of men, neither they nor
their writing were not inspired; the half converted "church fathers"
looking for a way to put their philosophy learned from men into Christianity
used the words of Christ in the same way Whitlock did. The church fathers had
to have a place to put their immortal soul, which had come from the Greek
philosophy. Very often statements like the same word aionios, (eternal) is used
to describe both Heaven and Hell when nothing is said about Hell or Gehenna in
Matthew 25:46. Dr. Bert Thompson said both Heaven and Hell are described with
the exact same terminology in the Bible. “Reason and Revelation,” July 2000.
The sad thing is that many will believe such a statements without question. How
could anyone make a statement like this, “Both Heaven and Hell are described
with the exact same terminology in the Bible.” There is no way he could not
know “Heaven” is used hundreds of times, but “Hell” is not used even one time
in the Greek. The truth is that aionios, (eternal) is not used in any passage
with sheol, hades or Gehenna, not in any passage that any of the three words
that are translated Hell in the King James Version. Dr. Thompson did not give
one passage where Hell is described with the same terminology as Heaven. There
is not one.

“Life
In Christ” by Edward White was published in 1875 may have been one of the first
major protest against the doctrine of an immortal soul. For the most part this
book teaches the truth on the doctrine of a soul and Hell however there are a
few things in it that are unbiblical.